Oh, Curses!
by ShinMarsDragon
Summary: It's always difficult adjusting after a sudden promotion, as Sumia learns.


AN: Originally written for EvilMuffins for Trick or Treat 2016 and posted on AO3.

* * *

The Risen had archers. Sumia pulled her mount's reins and the pegasus flapped out of one volley's path, though she could hear the whistle as the arrow flew past. Oh, this wasn't good at all.

Robin had sent her over to hold the right flank nearly on her own and while Sumia wasn't in the habit of questioning their tactician's orders, well... Another volley of arrows flew past. It was just... Her pegasus dropped like a rock and only barely pulled out of the dive to avoid smashing them both across the countryside. Well, Sumia appreciated the faith, but it really was an untenable situation here!

She pulled back, just out of the Risen's range, and took stock of the battlefield. That's what Cordelia would do, deep breaths and cool analysis. Right now... One - no, two Risen archers in front of her, no cover, no forts, and the rest of the army behind her facing down their own problems. Sumia settled into the saddle and chewed her lip. If only Chrom or Frederick could get over here! Their armor wouldn't be scratched by arrows. She looked behind her. Frederick was barely visible, but it looked like he was fighting off two Risen on his own too. Chrom had his own enemy to duel, and Robin was nowhere to be seen. Oh, this was just perfect, now Robin had fallen and they'd all be eaten by Risen before they could even get back to Valm.

"SUUUUUUUUUUU-MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Sumia looked down, only to have her view swing wildly as her pegasus danced in the air to avoid another set of arrows. Ulp! She hadn't been flight-sick since she'd become a full knight, but right now the possibility of losing not just her lunch, but breakfast and dinner seemed more like a probability. She barely managed to land without falling off, just in time to have Robin come sprinting up.

"Sorry sorry! I meant to give this to you beforehand but I was so busy reorganizing everyone else's inventory- I mean, no time! Give me that and take these!"

"Give you what? Take these?" Sumia blinked at the small sphere and large tome that had been shoved in her hands while Robin dug through her saddlebags without the slightest hint of permission. Well, it was an emergency, but... "Um, Robin? What do I do with these, exactly?"

"Maaeeer Eel! Ooze it!" Robin came out of Sumia's saddlebags with the Talisman Sumia'd been saving between her teeth. She shoved the Talisman in her shoulder pack and waved her arms at Sumia. "Hurry! Or...dammit, I'll do it!" With that she jumped half into Sumia's lap, which panicked the pegasus, which nearly caused Sumia to slip off, which caused Robin to shove harder, which caused...well, Sumia didn't fall off and the Risen didn't fill them full of arrows, and that was really the important thing.

"Got it!" Robin cried, to which Sumia could only reply, "Got what?" before her vision blurred and shone like she'd looked into the sun again. The light cleared away a second later, leaving sparkles trailing around the edges of her vision. She felt...lighter. Stronger. Ready to return some Risen to the grave!

...except they still had bows and even though her pegasus was black now - and who did that? She'd spent hours this morning making sure her mount was shiny white! - Sumia was pretty sure they were just as vulnerable to arrows.

Robin just clapped her on the back with a cheerful smile. "Perfect! Just run up and blast those Risen before they get you and everything'll be hunky-dory! I'll get that other one for you," she said and raised her signature lightning tome to the heavens, calling down a fearsome bolt that fried the closer Risen in a single blow. "Right, I gotta go shore up the other flank! See you back at camp!"

"But-" Sumia's mount jumped into the air, eager after having been on the ground so long, and she struggled to keep a grip on the fire tome Robin had shoved at her. "But Robin, I can't do magic!" Henry had said! He'd switched their bodies to let her try magic! She wasn't one of her grand fictional heroines, able to switch between sword and spell with ease!

"You can now!" Robin waved as she dashed off, Grandmaster's coat flying.

Sumia looked at the other Risen archer, already starting to fit another arrow to his bow. She looked at the tome in the crook of her arm, next to her familiar lance. She looked at the Risen again. If she didn't move now, he'd shoot her out of the sky. There was no way to reach him with her lance in time. "Well, here goes," she murmured to herself and opened the tome.

"Bibbity, bob-er, blattery...blinky? Babkitty...er, wait...babbity bort!" Sumia read in a rush. There was just no possible way this was going to work. About as magic as an old sock here!

The Risen archer exploded into crackling flame.

Sumia blinked. "It worked?"

* * *

"It will work fine...it will blow up in my face...it will work fine...it will blow up in my face...it will work fine!"

The last flower petal fluttered away on the breeze and Sumia stood up, determined. "All right dinner, prepare to get cooked!"

She'd already piled up the wood under the cauldron, which was itself already full of water. All the ingredients for tonight's stew were arrayed on a table beside the firepit. The last thing needed was just a teensy-weensy bit of magical fire to make the perfect dinner. And who could toss magical fire with ease? Well, Robin, and Ricken, and Miriel...and now, Sumia! Carefully, she stood with her new tome open on one arm, the other outstretched towards the pile of wood, and chanted the spell.

The wood exploded into flame. As did the cauldron. And the table. And the grass nearby.

"Oh no!" Sumia grabbed the nearest long item at hand - her lance - and tried to edge it under the cauldron's handle. "If...if I can just upend this..." Sure, the metal was bright and hot and there was a massive cloud of steam, but there had to be some water left in there somewhere! She levered the lance upward, using her knee as a fulcrum until the heavy cauldron finally tipped over and sent a massive rush of boiling water all over the flames. "There!"

Her lance snapped.

Sumia looked sadly at the two halves of her favourite, perfectly balanced and forged, lance. It had been looking a little weak in the haft lately. "Maybe I can convince Robin to let me have a Silver Lance..." she murmured to herself, then looked again at the mess of dinner. Robin was notoriously cranky when dinner was late. Sumia sighed. "Or maybe I can borrow Cordelia's. Right after I clean this up."

* * *

"So what do you think?"

"I reckon..." Donnel scratched at his head and avoided looking at Sumia. "I reckon this here is a pretty poor idea, Miss Sumia."

"What's wrong with it?" Sumia did her best to keep her voice level, but some irritation slipped through anyway. It was a great idea!

"Well, it's just...you know..." Donnel trailed off and scratched at his head again. "It's just I think we should be trustin' the blacksmith about forgin', is all."

Sumia huffed. "The blacksmith said he needed more heat from the fire to forge my new lance properly. Well I know one way to get lots and lots of hot fire!" She waved her fire tome around for emphasis. "It'll work, trust me!"

The look on Donnel's face said he didn't believe a single word she'd said. "Not that I don't trust you, Miss Sumia, just...well, you can be a wee bit...you get into a lot of accidents, if you follow my meanin'. And fire magic's a mighty powerful thing."

"That's why I need to practice controlling it! And there's nothing more controlled than a blacksmith's forge," Sumia said. "Even if it might get away from me, there's no danger."

"...'cept to us..."

Sumia ignored him and faced the forge. When the blacksmith got back, he'd sure to appreciate the raging fire, and then he could fix up Sumia's new iron lance to be sharper, and then maybe Robin would forgive her for breaking the old one and making dinner late. All she had to do was put the fire in the pit...right in the pit...

"Miss Sumia!" Donnel tackled her backward as the fire burst into the pit, flaring up in a massive conflagration that went at least 15 feet in the air. Looking up at it from flat on her back on the ground, all Sumia could think was how good it was that the weather was fine and the blacksmith hadn't bothered to put up a tent.

And about how angry he'd be that his anvil was on fire.

"Drat and double drat! Why doesn't anything I do go right?"

* * *

After the cooking incident, and the forging incident, and the campfire incident, and the barn incident, and the Tharja incident, Sumia finally gave in. Defeated, she found Robin's tent. Fortunately, the tactician was actually in residence...for once.

"Robin, I-"

"Oh, Sumia! Perfect timing. I've been studying maps of the next battlefield, and I think I'll need you on the right flank to protect our center and act as the vanguard. It's over a wide area, which is why I need a flier, and it looks like we'll be facing armored enemies..." Robin pulled at one of her books, realised too late it was supporting the entire, delicately-balanced pile, and barely got out of the way of the crash. "Er, well, point is, we need you on the right flank."

This wasn't a good start at all. Sumia swallowed, summoned up her courage, and broached the subject. "That's what I need to talk to you about, Robin. It's about...well, it's about this new tome you gave me..."

"Oh yes, you'll definitely need that! In fact-" Robin dived behind her desk, followed by multiple loud crashes as equipment went flying. Sumia ducked a Second Seal, two swords, and a large book before Robin came up holding two more tomes in her hands. "You've got a feel for fire magic now, but you'll want wind for any fliers, and here's a lightning - you can't go wrong with a good bolt of lightning, that's what I always say - here, take the bunch," and before Sumia knew it she was holding three times as many magic books as she'd come in with, and she'd come in to get rid of the one she had.

"Robin, listen-"

"I'm so happy we're finally getting some cross-discipline balance in this army! You have no idea how much easier it makes the plans when I can give the mages an emergency sword, or the knights a good tome. It'll make on-the-go healing a bit trickier, but with Lissa and Ricken both handling staves now I think we won't have any problems-"

"Robin! Please, _please_ , listen to me!"

Robin turned from the map she'd been studying and blinked. "Huh? Sumia, you're crying! What's wrong?"

"I'm not crying." She wasn't. She had to blink a lot and hold her breath for a bit, but she _wasn't_ crying. "Robin...I can't do this."

"Support the right flank? Well, if you'd really rather be in the centre with Chrom and me that's fine, but we'll be making a hard push down the middle of the enemy lines and it'll likely get bogged down fast...intelligence says they have a lot of infantry this time..." Robin trailed off and really looked at Sumia for probably the first time that day. "Er...is that what you meant?"

"No!" Sumia took a deep breath and collected herself. She was a full member of the Shepards and a veteran of a real campaign. She was going to handle this like an adult. "I can't do magic at all! I'm - I'm a danger to the team like this, I can't...just take them back!" She shoved the tomes at Robin and prepared to run.

Robin didn't take them. She just put a hand on her hip and cocked her head to the side. "You can do magic, though. I saw that huge column of flame from the smithy, and Tharja told me about-"

Sumia cut her off before she could get one word further. "That's why! I'm out of control!"

"Eh, that happens. You learn from it and move on." Robin waved off any further protests. "No, I'm serious. Magic's a skill like any other. Remember that time I hit the tree instead of the Risen and Frederick barely stopped me from getting skewered?"

"Well, yes, but..."

"Or the time I magnetized all the pots and pans? Or the time I hit Cordelia instead of the knight I was aiming for? Or-"

"Er, Robin...you hit me. Not Cordelia."

"I did?" Robin looked surprised, then sheepish. "Oh right, it was you. Well, that just proves my point! Practice, practice, practice! I haven't hit anything I didn't mean to in ages!"

Sumia thought back to their last few battles and internally revised "ages" to "last week". At least those times Robin had at least managed to hit the enemy...more or less.

Come to think of it, Lissa had set the laundry on fire the first time she'd tried to use offensive magic as well. And even Miriel had singed a few allies in the heat of battle. It was...okay. Just part of life with the Shepards. Sumia felt the miserable weight on her shoulders start to lift at the thought. Slowly she pulled back her arms, gathering the tomes closer. They were hers now. And once she'd practiced a bit more...well, there was no limit to what she'd be able to do!

"That's the spirit!" Robin cheered, with a solid pat to Sumia's shoulder. "You'll get better at it, never fear! If you're still worried, though, I can pair you up with someone mage-y for the next battle. Let me see, Miriel's going to be next to Frederick, but Ricken and Henry are still free..."

"Um, Henry, please!" Sumia could feel herself turning red just saying it, but she had promised Henry a pegasus ride and he was so reassuring about magic...well, in the way he was completely casual about horrific bodily harm and gross misuse of power, but that was why he was so reassuring! Nothing she did, Sumia felt, could faze Henry.

"Sure, sure!" Robin made a scribbled note on her map. "Anything else you needed? How's your supply of vulneraries?"

"It's fine. I'd better go tend to my pegasus and leave you to your work." Sumia settled the tomes in her arms and stepped back towards the door.

Robin didn't even look up. "Great! Let me know if you need anything else, I'll be planning out the next deployment and promotion roster the rest of the day. If I move Lissa over here, and keep Panne behind..." Her words trailed off into mumbling.

"Nothing else, I promise. But..." Sumia paused at the edge of the tent, feeling awkward and shy but relieved and happy all at the same time and not sure how to express it. Finally, she just said, "Thanks, Robin."

The tactician just made some encouraging noises in her self-directed rant, but that was fine. Sumia walked towards the mounts with a lightness in her step she hadn't had in ages. After she brushed her pegasus down, maybe she'd find Henry and get some practice in before the next battle. Just as soon as she-

-as soon as she picked herself up from the ground. Why was she always tripping like that?! Sumia sighed. Before magic, maybe she should practice walking.


End file.
